the Laughing Boomer

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Glorious Greece

We visited seven islands in Greece, the first two; Kos and Rhodes independently and the other five as part of a twelve-day Crown Princess five-star cruise. The cruise started in Rome, and besides the Greek islands, stopped at Monaco, Kusadasi, Turkey, Naples and Venice. I’ve already written about Turkey and we are seeing more of Italy after the cruise, so will write of our Italian impressions later.

It only took one hour by small ferry to arrive at Kos, Greece, from Bodrum, Turkey. Kos is a little town with some ancient agoras (marketplaces) and plenty of ruins, a lovely port with fishers selling their morning catch and wonderful wooden sailboats offering day tours. It’s most famous because Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, was born there in 460 BC and founded the ancient medical Asclipeion Site. I stood under the 2,400 year old plane tree, now supported by brackets, where he supposedly lectured. We found the slow pace and electric blue sea captivating and kept putting off our departure. Besides a day outing when we toured the island by car, we didn’t do much. W e explored the wetlands of Psalidi which had few birds, but several different types of wildflowers. At Tigaki, and the nearby salt lake Aliki, we spotted yellow buntings, horned larks, ruddy Sheldrake, slender-billed gulls as well as a quail-like bird. We walked the long seawalls, and sampled the Greek food. Ken enjoyed the topless sunbathing. Our hotel was small, simple and immaculate; family run with several generations using the common areas.

By the time we left for Rhodes we only had two days there before our flight to Athens. The ferry ride was what we could have hoped for – pounding through the blue sea. We saw the small island of Symi or Simi on a scheduled stop. We were greeted at the Rhodes ferry dock by a Greek grandmother offering a room for rent and so off we went down twisted old cobblestone streets, with her husband carrying our luggage on his motorcycle. Her small Pension was right in old town, which is a world heritage site. Rhodes City is a large walled city with the Palace of the Grand Masters, forts, windmills, temples, mosques and various arched gates. The Knights of St. John established the city in 1291.We strolled along the long curved harbour outside the outer gates and explored the various sites. On the ancient winding streets inside the old city are typical tourist shops and dozens of open-air restaurants. We found it quite touristy, and high-priced, but it’s been a destination for the Brits for decades. We didn’t venture out of old town in our two days, but the airport drive revealed lots of sandy beaches, hotels and a much bigger island than we experienced.

Our first cruise stop was Santorini, a small hook-shaped island. Santorini has been ruled by Egyptians, Romans, Venetians and Turks. We tendered off shore, along with four other cruise ships and queued to ride the two-minute cable car to the little town of Thera or Fira. Clinging to the volcanic cliffs, Thera has classic Greek beauty: white-washed houses with various hues of blue trim; blue-domed churches; brilliant geraniums; cobbled, narrow alleyways; and magnificent views of blue, blue water. It’s amongst the most famous Greek islands because of the views. Unfortunately, the town was completely overrun with cruise passengers, and I didn’t enjoy the crowds and long line-ups. From the high vantage point we saw several other tiny islands. It was obvious many of the 777 islands of Greece are uninhabited, while some islands have small glistening-white towns on the hilltops. Santorini has a few black-stone beaches. I’m sorry we didn’t take the eight-mile bus ride to the town of Oia, which apparently has escaped tourism. At this point, because of the cattle-like crowds around the cable cars I don’t think I’d go back to Santorini.

Mykonos, on the other hand, is on the ocean and we could walk to the town. It was ruled by the Venetians until the 16^th century and now is ruled by tourism. The winding lanes were again lined with shops but the town wasn’t nearly as crowded. A “little Venice” area reminds us that Italian was the official language until 1830. Mykonos also has several classic windmills, with one dating back to 1715. Mykonos was on a major sea-trade route and here grain was refined and compacted. After missing Oia in Santorini, we were prepared, and enjoyed our 30-minute bus ride to Paradise Beach, where we shared a pleasant lunch with a Vancouver couple, Judy and Sam. I liked Mykonos more than Santorini because I prefer ocean to mountains and less crowds. The rich and the famous come here to see and be seen and with a couple of dozen beaches it would be a great, albeit expensive place to stay.

At Athens, we left the ship early for the Acropolis and the Parthenon, built in 447 to 432 BC. The Acropolis site has been in restoration mode for the past several years. The actual Parthenon is roped off to tourists and stands up to its reputation as a world-class ancient ruin. At the Acropolis we saw the Erectheion and the Porch of the Caryatids, supported by female statues. In the area we viewed the ancient agora, the Plaka or 19^th century marketplace, the Roman Agora, Hadrians Library and another Hadrian’s Gate. It was great to see this famous site. We bought tickets for a little “train”, the Sunshine Express which took us to more major downtown attractions outside the Acropolis area.

Athens has beautiful jacaranda and oleander trees and Acropolis is well-treed. Besides that, we found it to be a noisy, busy city with uninspiring architecture further marked by graffiti and very little greenery. It’s also quite polluted. It was hot at the Acropolis, and again, the crowds were almost unbearable. Another couple went in the afternoon and found the crowds less but the heat even more extreme. Spending only a day in a large city and judging it negatively by that experience is not really fair but I wouldn’t rush back to Athens, except maybe in winter, as apparently it’s quite cold, even snowy, and the crowds are smaller.

Our experience the next day in Katakolon was completely different. It’s a small town of only 300 people, located on the Peloponissos Peninsula, with access to the Olympic site. Katakolon has a deep sea port and so we docked, always easier than tendering. We walked the three blocks of town and caught a one-hour train ride to the ancient home of the Olympic Games. It’s fairly well populated peninsula and the countryside is lovely, with olive and oleander trees along the tracks. The Olympic site is impressive. It’s about as big as Jerash, Jordan, a large Roman site, although not as well preserved, as the area suffered a major earthquake in the 6^th century. Still, this big site has remains of a gymnasium, a stadium for 40,000 people, baths with wall heating, the Temple of Zeus, and ruins of other temples and buildings of note. What makes Olympia very pleasant are the dozens of gigantic old trees: katsura, pine, oak-type and maple-leaf-type trees, as well as some yellow-flowered trees. This provided shade from the hot, hot sun and made for a pleasant stroll.

Much further north, with part of the island is only two miles from Albania, Corfu is lush and cooler. Its history is as most of the islands – occupied by the British, French, Venetians and Corinths. Old town Corfu has a lovely town centre, Spianada, planted with grass, unusual in the islands. Corfu has Old and New Citadels, built by the Venetians and a British-built Palace of St. Michael and St. George, which now houses the Corfu Museum of Asian Art. The town is a mixture of cultures; for example, people play cricket there. Tourism is a well-established reality in this town and many five-star resorts dot the island.

The Asian Art Museum has 10,000 pieces of Japanese, Korean, Indian, Thailand, Cambodian, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and Tibetan art. The collection was donated by a Greek in exchange for a small pension and he was its first curator. It is particularly well-done, very informative and we took many pictures. We didn’t expect to find such an excellent gallery on a tiny Greek island. We liked Corfu because it’s a “regular” city, not just a tourist town.

And so we ended our seven-island, two-week tour of Greece. It’s hard to say which island we liked best. We spent the most time in Kos and would return, but Mykonos, Katakalon and Corfu were also lovely. We would like to go Lesvos Island, off Turkey, as apparently it’s on a migratory bird route. Prices in Greece are about double that of Turkey. People we talked to say tourism is down, and with the Brits taking a 30% haircut on the Euro, we could see why they would go elsewhere. We were glad for their slow start but I think it might extend to the whole summer.

On the island of Kos we met a just retired man as we enjoyed a Greek coffee. He said, “Money is money, but, life is life. Come to paradise, (his little town,) and go to heaven.” The appeal of Greece is that it is a paradise in many ways – a simple way of life in nature and the sun. Paradise.

Mahara